Open mike at Club Passim...and a great joke...

It's not because I'm cheap or unemployed with pittance trickling into my bank account. If I had a million dollars I'd still like a good deal and music and finding those great, simple places that put it all together.

Tuesday night is open mike at Club Passim in Cambridge. It's five bucks, or free if you're a member like me. Sue takes guitar lessons from Janet Feld at Club Passim's music school that night, so I go into Cambridge with her and hang out in the club. (I take music theory from Ray Chesna there, but that's fodder for a different posting.)

I've always been a big fan of open mikes. Years ago I saw the likes of Jay Leno, Bob Goldthwait, Lenny Clark, Steven Wright, Tony V, and a boatload of other Boston comedians try out there stuff before they made it big at open mikes at places like the Comedy Connection when it was still at the Charles Playhouse. And if memory serves, the cover was about a buck or two. What a great deal.

Like all open mikes, the one at Club Passim is always a crap shoot. The audience is friendly and supportive to all the acts, especially when someone is struggling. They are always appreciative of good work. To a person, everyone there really loves and cares about music and songwriting.

Some nights you get to see a lot of real up-and-coming talent. Other times it's really spotty. There's no guarantee that the people you're watching will be the next Tracy Chapman or Bob Dylan. A lot depends on luck and drive and talent. For every Jay Leno I saw at the Comedy Connection, I watched a lot of (mostly) guys just bomb. But that's not the point of going. It's seeing the works in progress. It's watching the fits and start. The falling down and getting back up again. It's finding that little gem of a moment whether it's new song or strum pattern or maybe just a line in some lyrics.

Last night was a typical night. One woman sang a song about a guy and a girl not getting along very well, with this line in it: I'm a thief and not a liar so I'm going to keep my mouth shut.

There was a bluegrass duo, guitar and fiddle, named The Whiskey Brothers. The two were so young they didn't look old enough to order, much less drink whiskey, but they played one song called, Block Island that was just so nice and sweet. Hard at some points with some deep bass, I imagined the waters off Block Island.

And toward the end there was a guy named Joel (I didn't catch his last name but he's in the picture above) who finger-picked his way through a song about a road, just perfect and mournful.

Along with musicians, there's a comedian who performs regularly, and an actor who recites poetry. One time I was there and he recited nursery rhymes. That night it wasn't my thing, but another night I listened to him recite a litany of poems about ravens. On and on he went, and it takes a few nights but you start to get a real appreciation for what's going on inside that man's head, whatever it is. There's a comedian, I believe his name is Michael Fast--I hope that's his name; I want to get it right--who is constantly trying out new material. I'm kind of critical and sympathetic of comedians having done stand up before. He has kind of a crazy, deadpan, intentionally dumb way of delivering, and last night he told this joke: I read that book about woman being from Venus and men being from Mars, and I think there's something to that. I met this woman, and we got along, and one night we slept together and when I woke up the next day I noticed she had crop circles in her chest hairs. Okay, it's weird, but it's Cambridge, and that's funny.

A little fish in a big pond

When I interviewed for this job, the creative director told me that he came to this agency because he was tired of being the most talented person in the shop. Some people, but not all, like to be pushed. They like to stretch. They like to be challenged and put out of their comfort zone. To be a big fish in a little pond is an embarrassment to them. Some people's ego needs that big stroking. Being stroked is more important than the what's being learned or done.

I was always on the young side. My birthday's at the end of September, so when I started first grade I was still five while the rest of the kids were six. So all my life I've had to reach and stretch. Luckily that worked fine for me, though it's not for every kid. I'm used to challenges and being the little guy and the underdog. I've had to fight and scrap a lot.

I bring this up because I started music lessons last night with Janet Feld. I was a bit worried about going into Cambridge and dealing with the hippies at Club Passim, but I have to say I was kind of laughing inside. Everybody was so nice and friendly, I swear once or twice I thought they were going to give me the peace sign.

One of the students, one of them that seems to have quite a bit of musical experience, said he was there because he's always loved music and what it does for him. Janet smiled and said, well, you've found your tribe. And I wondered if that included me, too.

And I got a long way to go, this pretty much self-taught guitar picker, and Janet in her funny, smart way starting straightening me out from the get-go, from how I hold my pick to how I play G. She said I play bluegrass G, because the pattern I play is so easy to go to C or G, and she's right, all those country songs I've been playing are CF&G. She said play big girl's G, the only reason she called it that is because one of her girlfriends called it that.

And she passed out sheet music, and what do you know, I looked down and saw the chord chart for Nanci Griffith's Trouble in the Field, one of my all-time favorites and I always wanted to play it but couldn't master that darn barre chord.

So, I'm stretching. And reaching. And hopefully, that means growing.

And here's one of the most beautiful love songs anyone's ever written.


Baby I know that we've got trouble in the fields
When the bankers swarm like locust out there turning away our yield
The trains roll by our silos, silver in the rain
They leave our pockets full of nothing
But our dreams and the golden grain

Have you seen the folks in line downtown at the station
They're all buying their ticket out and talking the great depression
Our parents had their hard times fifty years ago
When they stood out in these empty fields in dust as deep as snow

[Chorus:]
And all this trouble in our fields
If this rain can fall, these wounds can heal
They'll never take our native soil
But if we sell that new John Deere
And then we'll work these crops with sweat and tears
You'll be the mule I'll be the plow
Come harvest time we'll work it out
There's still a lotta love, here in these troubled fields

There's a book up on the shelf about the dust bowl days
And there's a little bit of you and a little bit of me
In the photos on every page
Now our children live in the city and they rest upon our shoulders
They never want the rain to fall or the weather to get colder

[Chorus]

You'll be the mule I'll be the plow
Come harvest time we'll work it out
There's still a lotta love, here in these troubled fields